Quote:
Originally Posted by Murph
Thanks guys. Although it's still a good looking vehicle it absolutely needs all new hoses, valve seals, drivers airbag, brakes and tires all around. That's north of $3,000, probably closer to $4,000. I've chased repairs on older vehicles before. It becomes a money pit with no hope of increasing the cars value. As my dad said to me one time (updated for inflation) "Son, you can put $3,000 into a $1,000 car and you still only have a $1,000 car." KBB.com shows average trade in value for this condition as $450 - $1,000. I do appreciate those that want to do the work themselves and those that have different opinions about my strategy. However, for me it's time to let it go.
Thanks again for this great forum. As you can see I joined in 2010 and still have less than 10 posts. However, I have spent many hours either researching or just reading.
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I agree with "zonefive" about repairing your existing car. You shouldn't be too concern about the resale value since you won't be selling it once it's been repaired. What you should be more concern with is will that $4k spent cost less than the expense incurred with buying that new CPO, including taxes and depreciation over the same period that you expected your $4k repair to last. People keep getting hung up on what the existing car is worth, but you should really be looking at your overall out of pocket cost when doing comparisons.
But if you really want a new car, then that's a different thing - nothing wrong with that.